Rinko Kikuchi

“I love New York. I'm taking English lessons there for the first time. I used to live in Tokyo, but I needed something new. I'm really close to my family. I miss them all the time, but we Skype a lot.”

“On the red carpet, I need to be protected. When I wear a Chanel dress, I feel like I've earned the right to be there. And Karl Lagerfeld is so poetic, such an intelligent man. I like the way he has the power to draw attention.”

“There's something very... spiritual about fighting. It's physically very challenging. It's for killing people, after all, so it's taught me how to look at something head on. It's like living - confronting something. Everything for me came from films.”

“We don't put our emotions out there in Japan. I'm Japanese, but I love to be honest.”

“I don't want to limit myself. I want to keep doing all sorts of roles. I guess what lies behind this urge is the conviction that movies have changed my life. And certain performances have inspired me to try to be someone different.”

“I've been working with Spanish, French, some more American, and Japanese directors. And then I realized I have to study English, and that's why I moved to New York two years ago.”

“I grew up with a lot of monster movies, robot movies, since I was a kid. I love anime movies, like 'Evangelion' and 'Ghost in the Shell.'”

“When I was a little girl, I used to watch a lot of monster movies, like 'Godzilla.' All those monster movies.”

“I like challenges. That's why if I read a script, and I feel, 'Oh, I can't do this,' I'll take that role, because if I feel like, 'Oh, I can do this,' I don't want to take that because I can't learn from that film.”

“Not all actresses know how to express their looks, I think. For me, it's an on-again, off-again thing. I'm still struggling.”

“Fashion is really interesting to me, but I'm not a professional model, so I'm focusing my career on acting.”

“When watching movies, I was always inspired by the performances of the cast. Of course, the story and the direction and all that intrigued me. But what actors would propel themselves to do, and be, was awesome. It was like, how could these people give so much?”

“I've seen 'Babel' four times. And each time I realize anew what a monumental project that had been for me.”

“I love film, any kind of genre.”